Ubuntu Linux 5.04

As noted before, Ubuntu is based on Debian GNU/Linux.
Debian's package management system, APT (Advanced
Packaging Tool) is famously easy to use. As long as
your system has access to a server with the package
you want, a single command installs the
package and automatically brings in any other packages
needed by the one you requested. There is no charge for downloading new
packages or security updates.

Using the apt-get command-line tool, it also is possible to update your
system, automatically retrieving any new versions of the packages you
already have. There is also an ncurses-based character-mode tool called
aptitude that makes it easy to browse packages, plus a GNOME graphical
package browser called Synaptic Package Manager. All of these have
been standard in Ubuntu since the first release.

Figure 2. The Synaptic Package Manager showing the LyX packages.

With the 5.04 release, Ubuntu has made package management even easier,
and the most common cases are now extremely simple and
discoverable.
When updated packages become available, a bright red icon appears in the
notification area. Clicking on the icon launches the Ubuntu Update Manager,
which shows a list of packages with available updates; one click on the
Install button updates the Ubuntu system to the latest packages. This
handles both security updates and feature updates.

Figure 3. The Ubuntu Update Manager showing that Adobe Acrobat
Reader 7 is available for download.

Figure 4. The Ubuntu Update Manager showing that the system is up to
date.

Under Applications/System Tools there is a launcher
for the Add/Remove Programs dialog, another new
feature to Ubuntu 5.04. The most common programs
a user might want appear here, along with an icon, a
friendly name and a terse explanation of what the
program does. Simply marking a check box next to the
program name selects that program for installation.
Clicking on the Advanced button brings up the
Synaptic Package Manager, which can perform any
package management task. Expert users probably will
go straight to Synaptic or aptitude, but beginners
will appreciate this feature.

Figure 5. The Add/Remove Programs dialog showing office
applications.

The Ubuntu packages are divided among four components: main,
restricted, universe and multiverse. With all four package components enabled,
an Ubuntu system has access to more than 16,000 different packages.
Packages that are installed by default are listed
in the main or restricted components. Main
contains completely free software, plus some fonts and
binary firmware files that are redistributable but not
actually free software. Restricted contains non-free
proprietary software distributed with restrictions,
such as NVIDIA video drivers.

Ubuntu is free to distribute, install and use,
and the restricted packages are essential to make
a distribution that simply works, out of the
box, on all common hardware. If you want to avoid
proprietary software, you can remove the restricted
component from your package sources.

The universe and multiverse components are
disabled by default. Universe contains many
thousands of packages from Debian GNU/Linux, compiled
for Ubuntu but tested very little and not supported.
Multiverse contains proprietary packages, such as
Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.

Using Ubuntu

Ubuntu comes standard with a solid assortment of software—OpenOffice.org
office suite, The GIMP image editor, Evolution e-mail client and Firefox
Web browser—all the basics you would expect to find on a modern Linux desktop system by default.

Using the Synaptic Package Manager you easily can search through the
thousands of packages and select new ones; a click downloads and
installs them. It's really fun to browse through the package listings,
shopping for new software. Any software that Ubuntu does not install
by default can be added easily, which is a real strength of the APT
package management system.

Before you use Ubuntu, I suggest you look over the tips collected on the
Ubuntu Guide Web site. It's a treasure trove of useful information.

A major hole in GNOME 2.10, however, is the lack of a menu editor. GNOME 2.10
adopted the new freedesktop.org menu standard, so older menu editors
don't work, and there simply wasn't a new menu editor available to ship
as part of GNOME 2.10. However, all of the packages in the Ubuntu base
system are good about putting launchers in the menu, so the typical
Ubuntu user does not need a menu editor. If you want to install a menu
editor, you can install the KDE Menu Editor (provided by the kmenuedit
package) or
follow the step-by-step instructions from the Ubuntu Guide Web site to
install a simple GNOME Menu Editor.

The six-month release cycle may cause this sort of rough edge to
appear again in the future. But given how easy it is to update an
Ubuntu system, any real problems that turn up can be fixed with updated
packages. For example, once there is an official Ubuntu menu editor,
all Ubuntu systems will get it when they update their packages.

If you want to use the universe packages, I suggest you set up the
Debian menus. The universe packages may not add menu entries to the
GNOME desktop menu, but they almost always add entries to the Debian
menu. Install the menu and menu-xdg packages, and the Debian menu
appears under Applications/Debian.

Ubuntu does not come standard with support for legally encumbered media
technologies such as MP3 audio or MPEG2 video. The Restricted Formats
page on the Ubuntu Web site discusses the situation.

For system administration, Ubuntu encourages you to use
sudo. By
default, no root password is set. You can get a root shell by
running sudo -s.

Figure 6. This is the dialog to set custom key shortcuts, with actions
bound to the multimedia keys on my keyboard.

I came to know ubuntu becouse I have tried very hard to lean to work with linux, It surprise me the easyness of the intallation of your program,.....But....as i tried to install SUSE along with it I runned into the same problem; "It is very easy to run windows and any linux program, but be aware, it not the same thing when it came to run linux with linuxes.
Sugestion: Add more simplicity to the intallation
"Are You using another linux software (provide a list of possibles)"
"Ubuntu will now make room for your (linux flavor) by adding the following partition and choise at boot time" or something like that, you know I am not a linux programer so I do not know how to screw it.

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